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Friday

The pedestal paint was complete, so I removed the masking tape.  Later in the day (not shown here), I reinstalled the wheel and the cleaned-up winch pocket.

I spent the rest of the morning finishing up the framework for the winter cover.  I extended the ridge aft and past the transom, and supported it with three more verticals.  Then, to hold the whole arrangement securely, I installed tie-down lines as needed to tighten the frame and hold it in place.  Jason, my upholstery and canvas contractor, came by in the afternoon to tale some rough measurements he needed to build the blank for the cover.

I picked up new vinyl graphics for the name and hailport, and installed them on the transom in the afternoon.  The outline color would tie in with the new boottop that I’d be working on presently.  I installed the name lettering as high as I could without interfering with the two vent fittings on the transom, and followed the camber of the taffrail above; I installed the hailport on a  visually horizontal line beneath.

Total time billed on this job today:  5 hours

0600 Weather Report:
8°, clear.  Forecast for the day:  Sunny, 33°

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Thursday

The first order of business was to prepare, then paint again, the steering pedestal.  I chose a semi-gloss finish for the pedestal, as I felt it would look best and was appropriate to the original pedestal finish.  The second finish coat was looking pretty good.

I continued work on the hull, this time on the starboard side, where I cleaned up and polished the topsides, removing various minor stains and increasing the shine.

I finished up the aft part of the port cove stripe with the logo, then replaced the starboard cove stripe with the gold leaf tape as well, simply copying what the old stripe details had been.

Meanwhile, not to be forgotten, I continued my tiny varnish project with the cockpit table, which was now approaching its final coat.

Now that the new foredeck paint had cured for a couple days, I finished up the windlass installation by installing the two foot switches.  The holes were all prepared, with pilotholes for the screws already in place, so installation was relatively quick.  I chose to pull the wires up through the deck in order to connect them from the top just to make life a little easier.  I bedded the plastic switch bodies with butyl sealant.  Testing the windlass operation would have to wait till the batteries were hooked up.

With a new custom winter cover planned, and the project wrapping up soon, I turned to the framework required for the cover, which the canvas contractor needed in place to effect his initial fitting of the cover blank, and to give him time to complete the cover before I was ready to move the boat outdoors, it was time for me to get the frame set up.  I’d get back to some additional hull work as soon as the frame was done.

Earlier, we’d worked out a couple basic details about the frame for this boat, and to get started I pre-assembled two ridge sections down in the shop to streamline the process and keep the sections as straight as possible.  I spliced the sections together with bolts to make setup and removal as simple as possible on an ongoing basis, and sometime later I’d mark and label everything for its proper position.

This frame was to dive from the foredeck to the stem, so I set up the first 16′ section of ridge so it ended at about the foredeck cleats, where I installed a vertical support, and another further aft near the mast step (this one was actually the height benchmark).  With the first section steadied temporarily with some lines, I cut and fit the angled forward section to notch around the base of the bow pulpit on centerline, and secured it to the horizontal ridge with some angled splice brackets.  My goal, as always, was to keep the frame as simple as possible, both for initial construction purposes as well as annual set up and break-down.  The angle of the cover itself would provide enough slope without the need for complicated rafters or side bracing.

This brought me to the end of the day, but it’d be no trouble to finish up the aft part of the frame next time.

Total time billed on this job today:  7.5 hours

0600 Weather Report:
20°, partly clear.  Forecast for the day:  decreasing clouds, 34°

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Wednesday

After a light sanding, vacuum, and solvent wash, I applied the first of a couple coats of enamel to the steering pedestal.

The hull was in good condition overall, but needed just a touch of sprucing up.  I started at the transom, where I removed the rest of the old name and hailport and cleaned and polished the surface to prepare it for the new graphics, which would be on hand soon.

I continued with the port topsides, which started out looking pretty good but with some staining and minor wear or oxidation.

Though the forwardmost waterline would require a little more work–there was some yellow staining just above the boottop that I wanted to get rid of with another product, as well as some marks probably left by a mooring buoy–after a straightforward polish and buff the topsides looked cleaner and renewed.

With some color changes on hand, my first step was to replace the existing blue cove stripe with classic gold leaf.  I was running out of shop time, as I had another commitment for the afternoon, so as of this writing there remained some work at the aft end of the cove stripe and with the original logo, but the remainder was complete.  I’d repeat these basic processes on the starboard side next time.

Total time billed on this job today:  3.5 hours

0600 Weather Report:
30°, clear.  Forecast for the day:  partly sunny, high around 42.

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Tuesday

One more washing and light sanding, and I was done with the stern tube repair, so I went ahead and reinstalled the propeller, along with a new zinc on the special nut at the end.  It was interesting to compare the old zinc with the new one.  The old cotter pin had either been purposely broken off inside the shaft, or accidentally so, so I knocked out the remains and replaced it through the zinc’s special prop nut.

I lightly sanded the primer on the pedestal and foredeck, and after cleaning up I masked off the rest of the starboard side of the foredeck so I could repaint the area with paint that matched the existing areas.  Because the deck was conveniently sectioned with white borders, I chose to paint this entire area to better blend in the repaired area around the windlass.  With past experience using Kiwi-grip (the paint that a previous owner had applied to the decks sometime before), I knew to mask in a wider area (especially where the sides of the roller might touch) because the stuff was messy to work with.

With preparations complete, I applied a coat of cream-colored Kiwi-grip that I fortunately had on hand, and which matched the paint already on deck.  Once the paint had cured just barely past the potential disaster stage, I removed the masking tape from the edges, as leaving the tape on till this particular paint cured completely would pull up the edges.  This was always my least-favorite feature of using this particular product, but in this case was uneventful.  The end result looked good, and I’d leave the new paint to cure for at least a full work day before attempting the final installation of the windlass foot switches over the fresh surface.  Later, I removed the masking tape from the cleat, choosing to wait to lean over the fresh surface till it was basically dry.

Next, I applied a coat of primer to the steering pedestal–the entire thing this time.

My work list grew ever shorter, with most of the remaining work to be done on the hull, but before I moved the staging down to hull height I went around and installed new set screws in all the stanchion bases, in the existing holes.  These, along with the fixing screws that passed into each stanchion, would help hold the stanchions tightly in place and prevent wobbling.  I had to clean out a couple of the holes with a 1/4-20 tap, but otherwise the project was without note.  I put a little waterproof grease on the screws since a new winter cover would require annual removal of the stanchions, and this would prevent the set screws from freezing.

I continued the varnish work on the cockpit table with another coat on the top surface (4).

With whatever work remained on deck and inside the boat just as do-able without the staging, and a need to continue work on the remains of the project list, I spent the rest of the afternoon breaking down and resetting the staging at hull height.

Total time billed on this job today:  5.75 hours

0600 Weather Report:
22°, 2″ of snow plus some freezing rain overnight, light freezing rain/drizzle.  Forecast for the day:  continuing to warm through the 30s and 40s and even the 50s, turning to all rain, with another round of heavy rain and wind due late

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Monday

Over the weekend, in two separate events, I continued work on the stern tube and sanded and fine-tuned the new fairing with additional epoxy material, sanding between rounds.

Round 1:

Round 2, which was a minor fairing to take care of a few lingering low spots:

Now, I washed and lightly sanded the aperture a final time to smooth the last application of fairing compound.  To finish off the area, once I’d cleaned up I applied a coat of unthickened epoxy as a sort of sealer for the fairing compounds beneath, and left it to cure.

Meanwhile, upstairs I continued varnish work on the cockpit table top.

To better support the windlass and spread any loading across a larger area of the deck, I elected to prepare and install a fiberglass backing plate belowdecks.  With various existing installations to work around, I started with a piece of 3/4″ prefabricated fiberglass sheet and, after rough-trimming it to fit within the allotted space, pressed it temporarily into place with a stick to hold it so I could go on deck and mark it for the cutouts and bolt holes, which I cut down on the bench.

For a close fit with the built-up structure forward of the backing plate, I scribed the leading edge of the backing plate to the shape, which allowed all four windlass bolt locations  a good bearing surface.  After I removed a bit of extraneous and pre-corroded aluminum from the edge of the existing structure, the new backing plate was effectively flush to allow the fourth bolt, which was half in and half out of the backing plate, a place to rest.

I prepared the windlass for its final installation by slipping the supplied gasket over the base.  The “knife edge” of the windlass base would probably seal the edges at the gasket fairly well, but to add some extra sealant and protection against water intrusion I added some butyl sealant around the tops of the fixing bolts and around the two large openings of the windlass base.

Pressing the windlass firmly into place from above–I had to push hard to get the butyl around the bolts to squeeze into the holes, which was a good thing–I moved below to install the backing plate, fender washers, and nuts, and I tightened the bolts in turn to pull the windlass securely into place.  As I’d hoped, back on deck the gasket looked well-compressed below the windlass base, and some of my butyl had squeezed out as well.

On paper, the windlass setup, with its threaded collar and shaft, castellated gearbox, and separate electric motor, looked fairly well thought-out from an installation standpoint, and so it turned out to mainly be.  To begin the installation, I applied good waterproof grease to various areas, as directed, including the shaft and key, inside of the gearbox, castellated interface, and the threads to accept the large fixing nut on the shaft, as well as the motor shaft, bolts, and mounting flange,

The system allowed easy positining of the gearbox and motor assemblies for various situations, and after trying a position or two I settled on facing the gearbox and electric motor aft and to port, which offered the best access, kept it out of the way of the windlass chain pipe, and away from the two foot switches to keep access there as good as possible also.  The notched end of the gearbox housing fit into corresponding notches on the shaft housing, with a st ainless key to secure the windlass shaft within.  To secure the gearbox, the large plastic nut from the housing simply threaded hand-tight over the gearbox threads, with a simple clamping ring at the bottom of the shaft to secure the key within.

The motor was heavy, and with limited arm and shoulder access into the chain locker its initial positioning took a little wrestling till I figured out the best way to hold it in place–and lined up with the shaft–while getting the bolts started.  The two bolts threaded into the motor housing itself, so there was no need to juggle nuts and double wrenches, amd once the weight of the motor was supported it was no task at all (though I wished–as I frequently do–that manufacturers would leave enough room around bolt heads for a ratcheting box end or even a real socket and ratchet).  Yipe, yipe, yipe.

Now I could make up the final cable ends to the windlass motor.  The ground/negative cable was already terminated from earlier, and I secured it to the center post along with a smaller ground wire that led back to the control box.  Then, I cut and terminated the two positive wires (F1 and F2), which controlled the motor’s (and windlass’s) direction and attached them to their corresponding posts on the motor, and covered all three wires with protective boots and secured the cables out of the way as needed.

Final installation of the foot switches would await my repainting of the foredeck where I’d patched it, but while I had the wiring tools on hand I determined the lengths and made up the terminal ends of the wires to allow for easy final installation later.

Finishing the foredeck was now a priority, so to that end I masked off as needed and prepared some epoxy primer for the newly-epoxied areas, as most one-part paints and primers wouldn’t cure properly directly over semi-cured epoxy (the alternative would be to wait a couple weeks).  I applied the primer over the epoxied areas, and this would allow me to continue with the final deck treatment as I chose.

Similarly, back at the cockpit I masked off the steering pedestal as required, and applied some of the epoxy primer to the areas where I’d installed  epoxy fairing compound there as well, so I could soon continue with the final primer and paint on the pedestal.

Total time billed on this job today:  7.5 hours

0600 Weather Report:
-19°, clear.  Forecast for the day:  Sunny, high near 20, then increasing overnight to freezing and above. Snow late in the evening turning to frozen mix and eventually rain.

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Friday

With a new Cutless bearing that I’d ordered after removing the shaft several days before still a no-show from my original vendor, I’d ordered another one from a second vendor, and it arrived on Thursday afternoon while I was working on a remote project.  So with plans to reassemble the shaft, stuffing box, and coupling, I got back to work early in the morning so I could finish up the stern tube repair and prepare the Cutless bearing before my helper arrived to squeeze himself back into the bilge and put things back together.

With some photos of the original setup as a general guideline for how much stern tube should be protruding from the deadwood, I mocked up the shaft through the tube now to make some reference marks and see how it all played out vis-a-vis the original photos and my own sense of things.    Eventually, I determined that the stern tube had stuck out about 2″, and I masked off a reference line at this dimension so I could cut off the excess tube.  After double-checking the dimension, I made the cut, and once more mocked up the shaft and propeller to ensure that there was ample room between the tube and the prop hub.

With the tube at the right length, I turned to the Cutless bearing.  I had to lightly sand the inside of the tube to make the fit a little easier, but then the bearing slipped in with just the right amount of friction.  The brass body of the bearing was necessarily slim, and the rubber lining minimal, in order to fit a 1″ shaft through a 1-1/4″ ID tube.

Pleased with the overall arrangement from the mockup, I prepared two threaded holes, at 9 o’clock and 3 o’clock on the stern tube and about 1/2″ in from the end, to accept set screws that would hold the bearing in place.  Before installing the set screws, I used a small drill bit to just barely dimple the brass bearing housing at each location to better accept the set screw point.  Then, I installed the bearing, using a tiny amount of sealant on the body to help secure it and leaving about 3/8″ of the bearing standing proud of the end of the stern tube.

Normally I might have liked to have faired in the tube with the aperture before proceeding with the shaft, but with a desire to wrap up the stuffing box project and with schedule constraints, I could take care of that later.  I finished up the preparations just in time for my helper Jason’s arrival, and we got right back to the reassembly, starting with cleaning up the bilge area aft of the engine while access was as good as it would ever be.

The packing box hose was an extremely tight fit over the stern tube, but Jason eventually got it on and secured.  Then the space between stuffing box and transmission coupling was so minimal as to leave barely enough room to actually fit in the shaft coupling and brass key, a process made more difficult by the fact that most of the work had to occur one-handed.  But though challenging, of course it was possible to reassemble, and without too much fighting Jason got things put back together and secured the coupling set screws into their shaft dimples, and moused the bolts to prevent movement.  From there, it was a relatively simple matter to bolt the coupling back in place to the transmission coupling with new bolts.

With that done, I could start fairing the stern tube in to the aperture, much the way it had been when we started.  To save some future person some of the agonies we experienced during removal, I chose to leave the bearing set screws exposed, rather than burying them beneath the fairing as they’d originally been.  So I masked off the very end of the stern tube, and over the exposed end of the bearing and shaft, then mixed up a preliminary batch of epoxy thickened substantially with structural and adhesive fillers, smoothing it into place around the stern tube and approaching the final shape, though to avoid excess exotherm I’d do the buildup in 2 or 3 total applications.  I figured the first application would cure past the “hot” stage before the end of the day and would allow another application later, so for now I moved on to the next thing on the list.

It was time to drill the large holes required for the windlass installation, which would allow me to dry-fit the windlass and make sure everything was looking good.  So on the foredeck, I carefully set up the base template once more, ensuring its proper alignment with my teak base and, more importantly, with the anchor roller on the platform.  Satisfied, eventually, with the layout, I used a center punch to mark the centers of all the holes I had to prepare, including a 3-1/8″ hole for the chain pipe; a 4″ hole for the windlass shaft and body; and four 3/8″ holes for the fixing bolts.

Starting with the chain pipe hole, I used a hole saw to create the opening.  This was a long process, as this particular bit was very dull, as it happened.  With frequent stops to clear the teeth on the saw, and occasionally chiseling out the waste from within the hole to allow the hole saw to penetrate the growing depth, I eventually made my way through the roughly 2″ of solid teak, then a 3/8″ (more or less) thickness of solid fiberglass deck (the fiberglass was much easier to cut than the teak), then a thick layer of filler/putty/adhesive, and finally the aluminum cross member inside the chain locker.  With the nearly 4″ deep hole complete, I retired the exhausted hole saw permanently with honors.

The next hole, for the windlass shaft and body, was even larger, but as it turned out it was much easier to drill.  After giving my heavy-duty drill some time to cool off from its own heroic efforts on the first hole, I chucked in the 4″ hole saw for the final hole.  This saw was much sharper, and cut the teak with greater ease, and this large hole also ended up completely aft of the putty/aluminum structure I’d dealt with on the forward hole, so with hardly any ado at all, I was through.  Drilling the four small holes for the fixing bolts was a cinch.

The windlass fit into place quite nicely, and with it finally through the deck I could look from beneath and start to figure out the details of a backing plate that I felt was required for added strength.  Fortunately, I’d not need to worry much about building up the backing plate to match the thickness of the aluminum sub structure, as the bolting area of the windlass was aft of this point, other than one bolt that was close to the edge and would require something thicker there.

 

Meanwhile, on the deck side I was pleased to find that the lead from the anchor roller to the chain wildcat was even better in reality than I’d hoped for while laying out the templates.

I’d move forward with the final windlass installation details in the immediate future, but for now my next task was to seal the insides of the large holes (and, as much as I could, the smaller bolt holes) with epoxy to help protect the wood within.  Fortunately, there was no core material to deal with in any of these holes.

The windlass base itself had no flat surfaces to speak of, and wouldn’t be easy to seal well.  It came with a gasket, which hardly seemed sufficient on its own, so I’d find a way to add some better sealing material at the most critical parts of the windlass’s deck penetration.

To round out the day, I applied a second coat of filler to the stern tube, as the original coat had cured sufficiently over the past four hours.

Total time billed on this job today:  7 hours (Tim); 1.5 hours (Helper)

0600 Weather Report:
-10°, clear.  Forecast for the day:  sun, high 16°

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Thursday

Early in the morning, before I had to depart the shop for a day working remotely on another project, I removed the Delrin rod from the now-cured stern tube repair.  It took only light pressure with a wrench to slightly turn and break free the rod, after which I could pull it out of the new lamination by hand.  I was very pleased with the results of the repair, and would finish up the tube extension presently.  It would require cutting to the correct length, and installation of the new Cutless bearing, after which I could proceed with reinstalling the shaft and, at my leisure, fairing the tube back into the aperture as it’d been originally.

Total time billed on this job today:  1 minute 12 seconds

0600 Weather report:
18°, partly clear.  Forecast for the day:  sun, clouds, show shower in the afternoon, high near 30 but dropping in the afternoon